Pioneer Day

Pioneer Day is meant to be a celebration of heritage. It is the day that pioneers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley, with church president Brigham Young famously declaring "This is the place." Indeed, it is the place. It is the place where a determined group of faithful followers made their homes. They survived droughts and times of floods. They endured illness and the hardships that come with living in remote locales.

Eventually, they spread out across the state and throughout the western United States, leaving their imprint on the culture of our nation.

The day really is a celebration for all Utah residents. After all, whether we are members of the LDS Church or not, we all share in the fruits of the labors of the pioneers. Likewise, it is impossible to fully separate the religion from the holiday. The latter simply wouldn't exist without the former. There's no shame in that fact. It just is what it is.

The earliest pioneers to Southern Utah had to endure the extreme heat and wild weather events such as flash floods. We have those same challenges today, but we have them with modern infrastructure, warning systems and, thankfully, air conditioning.

Today is a day to celebrate the accomplishments of the men and women who came before us to tame this wild land.

They built great cities, set into motion cultural elements that have endured and helped set the foundation for a region that many of us - LDS members and not -are proud to call home. The question, then, is what will our legacy be? How do we maintain the traditions while at the same time acknowledging that times have changed? The pioneers settled this land more than 160 years ago. What will our descendants have to say about us 160 years from now?

Some of the great debates of our times still involve land use, development and water pipelines. People on both sides of these issues see pros and cons. The pioneers had some of the same kinds of debates on other important matters - where to build dams, how to allocate limited water resources, how to care for others who couldn't help themselves.

They worked together - sometime after rigorous debate - to create the communities we reside in today.

May we, as we tackle these important issues, seek out wisdom and do our best to think not of ourselves, but instead for the people who will live here after us.

They will be our true legacy. And our decisions now will be the actions they study more than a century from now. May we leave behind as good a place to live as our forefathers left for us.

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Pioneer Day

Pioneer Day is meant to be a celebration of heritage. It is the day that pioneers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley, with church president Brigham